Dependable Guide on Disability Insurance (Comparisons & More)

Insurance is an important part of life, but let’s face it: having comprehensive coverage can get super complicated. Most of us understand the necessity of particular types of insurance such as car insurance and health insurance.

When it comes to insurance options such as disability and life insurance, you might be tempted to think you can save some money by taking on the risk by not purchasing coverage. If you’re confused about why you should have disability insurance and life insurance, then this guide to disability will help you clear things up.

While most people depend upon their employer benefits to maintain comprehensive disability insurance, many of us have less coverage than we need or have gaps between disability and life insurance coverage.

Purchasing good insurance will give you peace of mind and doing your homework to learn about disability and life insurance is worth the effort.

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What is disability insurance?

Private disability insurance often flies under your risk radar. Most people see disability coverage in their employer benefits package or hear about disability benefits through programs such as Social Security and assume they’ll have access to benefits if and when they need them.

Understanding what disability insurance is and how much coverage you have is critical in keeping you from experiencing hardships if you ever become unable to work.

Disability insurance is simply insurance that will help you cover your expenses if you experience an injury or illness that prevents you from doing your job in any physical or mental capacity.

For example, if a construction worker breaks an arm and can’t work on the job in any physical capacity, disability insurance would be used to help cover expenses until the injury heals.

Similarly, if a scientist suffers from symptoms of chronic fatigue that is induced by long stretches of concentration or stress preventing any analytical work, disability insurance would be needed to help the scientist cover the costs of living.

Disability insurance claims can be filed whether your injuries or illness are a result of your job or not. However, the extent of your illness or injury and the time in which you’re able to collect any claim payments will depend on whether you file for short-term disability or long-term disability.

While long-term disability insurance can help you if you’re unable to return to the workplace, short-term disability can help you during an absence that may last anywhere from a few weeks up to a few months.

In some cases, short-term disability will even cover a portion of time for maternity leave. Although maternity leave is usually covered by health insurance and employer policies, short-term disability can also be used to replace income for maternity leave.

Few people take the time to understand how much disability insurance they might need, how much they might have through an employer plan, and what to do if there is a gap in insurance.

It can also be difficult to figure out where health and life insurance leave off and where disability becomes necessary.

This short video below describes the reasons why you should prioritize owning disability insurance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ2zMlf2xjQ

The video above clears up a common misconception. If you get sick or injured, you may think you’re covered with health insurance so you’ll be fine. However, health insurance will only cover your medical bills.

You’ll still need to make payments on your rent or mortgage, your car insurance, any tuition payments, and everything else. Health insurance won’t cover your living expenses.

You might also vaguely remember some clause in your life insurance policy that mentions disability coverage. Be very careful here: this clause normally only covers payments on your premiums during any period where your disability prevents you from making the payments.

So if you’re in the workforce and depend upon your income to pay for living expenses, you’ll want to make sure you have short-term and long-term coverage in place.

Still skeptical about needing disability insurance? Consider that even conditions like anxiety or depression can keep you from performing at your job. Then consider that almost one in five people in the United States have been affected by anxiety disorders.

Or consider how a simple but painful issue like carpal tunnel syndrome could keep you from your paycheck. Carpal tunnel can significantly affect your ability to sit at a desk and type, write notes, or text on your smartphone.

With disability insurance, people can take the time to get the help they need, whether physical or mental, instead of managing undiagnosed symptoms or battling through pain.

Where can you find disability insurance?

The good news about disability benefits is that you may have disability coverage and not even know it. The bad news is that you may be counting on disability benefits that aren’t sufficient to meet your lifestyle needs.

Here are a few places where you may already have access to disability insurance.

• Employer benefits – If you’re an employee with comprehensive benefits, you’ll likely have access to health, life, and disability insurance. Your disability coverage amount will be capped, so you need to know how much coverage you’re eligible for short-term or long-term insurance.
• Government-sponsored disability insurance programs – Your federal and state governments might provide disability benefits. At the state level, only a handful of states currently require employers to provide employees access to short-term disability. Access to benefits is usually restricted to job-related injury or illness. For longer-term disability, you might have access to Social Security disability benefits. However, these benefits can be difficult to qualify for and limited in the amount of benefit.
• Self-employed options for disability  – If you’re self-employed, you probably won’t have access to employer benefits or government-sponsored programs. In this case, you need to secure your own private disability benefits. Although many insurers offer disability insurance options, as you’ll see later in this article, disability benefits are capped at a percentage of your income. If you just started your own business and have no income, obtaining disability insurance could be tricky. To stay a step ahead, many entrepreneurs will secure private disability insurance before they leave the corporate sector and venture out on their own.

Let’s take a closer look at disability insurance that you can get from the insurance market. If you have access to employee or government-sponsored benefits, supplemental insurance can help you meet your coverage requirements. If you’re self-employed, you’ll want to look into a comprehensive private disability insurance option.

So what is supplemental disability insurance? If you have some coverage through your employer or a government state or federally sponsored plan, but that coverage isn’t enough to help you through an extended period without income from your job, supplemental disability insurance can provide the difference.

For example, let’s say that you have an income of $100,000 per year. Your employer’s disability benefit may only cover short-term disability benefits for up to 60 percent of your income. If your living expenses are covered within $60,000 you might think you have enough.

Here’s the thing, though. Your disability benefits are calculated on a pre-tax basis. This means if you’re out for a full year and receive the maximum benefit for one year, you’ll get paid out $60,000. However, this $60,000 is subject to income tax. Even if your tax rate is as low as 20 percent, your usable cash is only $48,000.

In this example, you’re left about $1,000 short every month. That’s not a small chunk of change to do without, especially when you’re focusing on getting back your health.

To cover the gap, you can get a supplemental disability insurance plan that covers at least an additional $12,000 per year.

On the other hand, let’s say that you have no employer-sponsored benefit plan. This is the case for business owners and any lawyers or doctors in private practice. In this case, you’ll want to acquire private disability insurance that can replace most of your income. However, this is where things get tricky.

As a business owner, some of your income may be awarded in stock, bonuses, or other forms of compensation that aren’t included in your salary.

Disability insurance only covers a percentage of your documented salaried income and doesn’t account for other sources of compensation.

Let’s say you receive an annual income of $200,000 paid 50 percent as a regular salary and 50 percent as a year-end bonus. Disability insurance providers will only consider the $100,000 component of your salary when determining your coverage. This leaves a huge gap. If your insurance only provides 60 percent of your income in benefit, you’ll have a gap of $140,000 in the year.

While employer-provided insurance plans are calculated only against salary, when you work with a private disability insurer, you can provide them with the expected total income that you want to be covered.

Additionally, employer-paid benefits are subject to income tax. For private insurance, where you pay unsubsidized premiums, benefits are typically not subject to income tax.

How does disability insurance work?

To understand how disability insurance works, let’s first take a look at when you need and use short-term disability versus long-term disability. When you need disability insurance, you’re concerned with three factors:

• How much will you receive?

• When will you begin to receive it?
• How long will you receive payments?

Let’s break this down for the two types of disability.

Short-Term Disability

Short-term disability benefits are usually calculated as a percentage of your income and typically have a cap. For example, Mutual of Omaha provides coverage at 60 percent of your income but is capped at $5,000 per month. This means if your income is higher than $100,000 you won’t be able to get more than $5,000 in coverage.
All disability policies have an elimination period. If you’re purchasing a private plan you can decide on your elimination period. Shorter elimination periods mean a quicker time to receive payment but come with a higher premium.
Knowing your elimination period can help you plan and manage any cash flow shortages by allowing you to either reduce your expenses or draw from savings during periods of disability.

If you have an elimination period of 90 days, you should have at least two months of expenses saved to help you get through the short-term disability waiting period.

The third variable for short-term disability is determining how long your short-term disability will make payments. With short-term disability, your plan will define how long you can stay on short-term disability. Many private insurance plans offer options that will offer ranges from nine weeks to 52 weeks.
However, your premiums will be quite a bit higher if your plan covers you for a longer duration.

Long-Term Disability

What happens if your injury or ailment outlasts your short-term disability? Similar to short-term disability, if you work more than 30 hours per week, you may have access to an employer or government-sponsored long-term disability program.

To better understand long-term disability, we can answer the same three questions posed above.

Similar to short-term disability, the amount of disability payment you’ll receive from your long-term disability program will depend upon your annual income. Long-term disability will also be a percentage of your annual income.

Although this amount can vary, for planning purposes you can assume the percentage will be about 60 percent.

Also similar to short-term disability, there is an elimination period before you receive any benefits. The elimination period for long-term disability can be a few months long. Your short-term disability should be structured to support your income until long-term benefits are approved and available.

Depending on your ailment or injury, long-term benefits can continue to pay benefits until you’re 65 or 70 years of age. However, getting approved for long-term benefits can be difficult. Only particular illnesses or chronic injuries are covered.

Don’t count on your benefits to be approved and set in motion forever, either. Even if you’re approved for long-term benefits, you’ll be required to maintain thorough documentation of all of your doctor visits, submit requests for approvals as often as every few months and, submit to reevaluation often.

To qualify for any private or employer-sponsored disability insurance you’ll need to submit medical information and complete a medical exam.

The video below provides some more details about disability insurance and how you can qualify for short- or long-term plans.

Now that we’ve gone over the basics of disability, let’s take a look at when and how you can access your insurance.

Worker’s Compensation vs Disability Insurance

On question many employees have is when they should consider making a worker’s compensation claim versus making a disability claim. First, it’s helpful to draw distinctions between disability and workers’ compensation.

Worker’s compensation is paid for by your employer. If you’re an employer of any business that is structured as a sole-proprietor, c-corporation, s-corporation, or limited liability corporation, then you should be paying for worker’s compensation insurance.

Although in some states, you may not be required to pay for worker’s compensation insurance if you don’t have many employees, as an employer, you should protect yourself from risks of employee injury from job-related tasks. Additional exceptions are made for business owners who are the sole employee of the business and freelance workers.

Disability insurance, on the other hand, is only mandated in five states. Furthermore, only short-term disability insurance is required by these states since long-term disability benefits are part of Social Security, which is a federal program.

In all other instances, employers can choose to provide disability benefits to employees. Most larger employers will offer short- and long-term disability benefits as a part of a competitive benefits package.

Aside from availability, worker’s compensation and disability insurance differ in two important ways:

• Worker’s compensation premiums are fully paid for by your employer, and claims must be filed by your employer. Disability claims must be filed by the employee.
• Worker’s compensation claims can only be made against job-related injuries or illnesses. Disability claims can be filed for any incidences in or out of the workplace.

Here’s a quick summary of the differences between the two types of insurance.

If you’re an employer of a small business, you’ll want to make sure you or your human resource service provider complies with all state and federal wage requirements for Social Security, worker’s compensation, and disability insurance.

How much does disability insurance cost?

Disability insurance paid through an employer will usually be paid for by the employer. However, a small percentage of programs require employees to make a contribution.

If your employer is paying for your disability insurance, they’re also setting benefit caps and elimination periods.

For employees who are required to pay for a part of their disability benefits, costs can be significantly different by industry. Service industry employees can pay as much as 42 percent of premium costs, while managerial and professional service jobs can pay only about 12 percent of premiums.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the cost per hour for short-term disability insurance on average is six cents. The cost per hour for long-term disability is five cents for private industry workers.

Private and supplemental disability insurance is calculated by a different set of factors. As previously outlined, these factors are:

• The maximum amount of benefit as a percentage of your salary
• The elimination period or waiting period required before benefits can be approved and paid
• Whether the insurance is non-cancelable vs. guaranteed renewable
• The length of coverage or amount of time benefits could be paid

We already covered how three of the factors above can affect premiums. The one additional factor is whether your insurance policy is non-cancelable or guaranteed renewable.

The difference between these two types is that for non-cancelable insurance, as long as your premiums are paid, your insurance can’t be canceled, and your rates will never change. For guaranteed renewable insurance, rates can vary from year to year. Premiums for non-cancelable insurance are higher.

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Types of Disability Insurance

Now that we’ve covered the two main types of disability insurance, long-term and short-term, let’s break down these insurance types into the sub-categories that are available under each.

Long-term disability insurance is available through private insurance providers and government-sponsored programs. Typically, long-term benefits will be calculated to cap at 67 percent of your current income.

This is important because while your employer plan may renew each year and provide an adjustment for any salary changes if you shop for private insurance, you’ll need to request adjustments to your benefits as your salary increases.

For example, let’s say you’re going to start your own business and leave a position that provides comprehensive benefits. To prepare, you get private disability insurance against your $80,000 annual income. At 67 percent of maximum coverage, your provider will only ensure long-term benefits of up to  $53,600.

After the first year of venturing out on your own, your private business profits are $200,000. You collect an annual income from the profit of $100,000 and take a $30,000 bonus. To adjust your disability income, you’ll have to contact your provider to make the adjustment to cover 67 percent of $130,000.

Be aware: some providers will only make adjustments every few years. When you purchase a private disability insurance policy, be aware of any adjustment periods.

Long-term disability benefits can pay benefits from your disability date up until you would have retired, and so benefits can be available until age 65. This is because at the age of 65, your retirement benefits are assumed to replace your income.

However, as mentioned earlier, staying on long-term disability requires that you maintain proper medical evaluations and submit regular proof of disability to your insurer. Payments from your insurer can also take time since the approvals have to make their way through quite a bit of red tape.

Short-term disability covers a bit more of your income. Short-term disability benefits can cover up to 70 percent of your income. You should review your policy in detail because insurers sometimes will cap your maximum coverage at $1,000 per week.

Short-term disability can cover anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. The duration of coverage depends on your plan and can affect the cost of premiums. Also, if you purchase short-term and long-term disability from the same provider, the program might be set up to switch you after a set period of time.

For example, your provider might require you to move from short-term to long-term disability after three months if your injury will keep you from returning to work within that time. This is an important thing to note since max benefit payments for long-term disability can be lower than short-term benefits.

Many people rely on government-sponsored programs for disability benefits. However, government-backed programs can be difficult to qualify for and could only cover certain illnesses and injuries. Accessibility to these programs could also depend on the type of employment you have and other factors.

The chart below provides an overview of some programs that fall under disability benefits:

If you’re self-employed, it’s likely that none of the programs above are available to you. Acquiring private disability insurance is especially important for:

• Freelance workers
• Business owners
• Employees who have significant stock paid in bonuses or stock incentives
• Anyone about to leave their current job

As a general rule of thumb, if you don’t have benefits under an employer-sponsored program, you should seek out private disability insurance.

Available Features & Riders

As with most insurance policies, there are additional riders and features that will affect your premium cost but are worthwhile to consider. We already discussed the option to choose between guaranteed renewable insurance and non-cancelable insurance.

Here’s a breakdown of why you might opt for either feature:

• Guaranteed renewable – This option is cheaper than non-cancelable insurance. However, your provider can raise premiums over the life of the policy.
• Non-cancelable – This option is more expensive, but your insurance can’t raise premiums over the life of the policy.

If you’re shopping for insurance and are younger, you may want to lock in a long-term rate for your policy that will never change, opting for non-cancelable insurance.

However, here’s an insider tip. For guaranteed renewable insurance, your insurance provider can’t adjust premiums unless the premium is adjusted for the whole class of policy owners. Even if an insurer decides to make such a change, the company would have to apply and be approved by the state before increasing rates.

Historically, guaranteed renewable insurance rates don’t have significant rate swings and could be the cheaper option for most people.

Disability insurance offers a few key riders that you should understand before securing a policy.

• Additional purchase or future purchase option – This rider allows you to increase your policy benefit without submitting for new approval or a medical exam. This is useful if you expect your income to increase regularly
• Coordination of benefits – Your disability insurance stipulates the total amount of benefit you might receive. If you have multiple sources of disability to draw from, this rider allows you to use other sources before drawing from your private insurance and then allows your private insurance to make up the difference. For example, if you can draw $500 a month from Social Security disability benefits and your total benefit is $800, your private insurance will pay you the $300 difference.
• Cost-of-living adjustment – This is an important rider to have as part of your disability insurance. When you purchase disability benefits, your payments are expected to be constant for the duration that you collect payments. However, if you’re on disability for a long time, inflation could affect your ability to pay your bills with your disability benefit. A cost of living adjustment allows increases to your benefit in line with inflation and cost-of-living increases.
• Residual or partial disability rider – This is another crucial rider to have as part of your policy and is often offered as an included rider. This rider allows you to receive payments if you’re partially disabled. For instance, if you have a cognitive issue and can no longer work five days a week but can function for three-day weeks, you can return to work on a part-time schedule and your disability benefits can supplement the lost income from your full-time position.
• Own occupation total disability – This is important because although you might become disabled, preventing you from doing your current job, you might be able to function in other jobs which could disqualify you from receiving disability. This rider provides eligibility for disability even if you can perform other jobs different from the one you were performing when you became disabled.
• Waiver of premium provision: This provision allows you to stop making payments for the time you’re on disability. This is a common provision and should be something you have in your policy.

Understanding and asking about these riders as part of your policy can help to ensure that if you have any sort of disability, you’re covered and can manage for any period of time until you can return to the work environment or are able to move to retirement benefits.

Disability Insurance & Life Insurance

Insurance can get confusing. It seems that everything requires some type of insurance these days, from homeowners and car insurance to vacation insurance and luggage insurance. When it comes to your financial security and well being, there are three main types of insurance you should understand.

Health insurance, disability insurance, and life insurance can often be lumped together erroneously. Because of this, policyholders may not be aware of where one coverage ends and the next begins. Let’s break down why you need to maintain each insurance.

Health insurance primarily covers your medical bills. This includes preventative care and family planning and care, wellness care, and medical care for all issues, minor or serious.  As mentioned earlier, your health insurance won’t cover your bill if an illness or injury prevents you from working.

Disability insurance covers at least a component of your income if you’re unable to work for a short term or longer duration. However, you can’t remain on disability forever.

Whenever you’re deemed healthy enough to return to work, your disability coverage will end, and you’ll need to get back to work. If you have a long-term disability and are unable to ever return to your job, you’ll receive benefits only until you’re eligible for retirement benefits.

Life insurance is meant to protect your family and loved ones if you were to die. This distinction seems easy to separate from health or disability insurance, but there is one point of confusion when it comes to life insurance.

Many life insurance programs come with a disability benefit rider. If you don’t read the fine print you may understand this rider as something that will pay you during a period when you can’t work.

Disability insurance riders will only protect you from having to make premium payments on your life insurance policy if you can’t make payments for a period of time when you’re unable to work and receive income.

A disability rider on life insurance is never a substitute for disability insurance.

Do you need life insurance and disability insurance?

Some people may not be able to afford both disability insurance and life insurance. Others might think it’s better to have disability insurance now and worry about life insurance later. However, most of us that can afford both types of insurance will need both types.

Anyone that lives off of work income should own disability insurance. This makes up almost everyone from ages 18 to 64 in the workplace.

Most of us want to protect our loved ones with a life insurance policy in case anything happens, However, what happens if you can’t afford both, or don’t have access to both?

The video below provides a short overview of why disability insurance can be more important than life insurance if you can’t have both.

Consider that most people have a much higher risk of needing short-term or long-term disability before the age of 65. Almost one in four Americans will need to rely on some type of disability insurance before retirement.

In most cases, you’ll want to secure disability insurance before considering life insurance. If you’re younger, your likelihood of needing disability insurance before life insurance is much higher.

However, as you approach retirement and feel comfortable in your financial security, you might want to look at life insurance options to ensure your family is protected during your later years.

Optimally, you’d want a full insurance profile where you’re protected with comprehensive health, disability, and life insurance. In some instances, you can adjust your budget for life insurance so you have cheaper term insurance coverage earlier and look for permanent life insurance as you approach retirement.

One consideration in developing your insurance strategy is that your employer program might offer sufficient health and disability coverage allowing you to concentrate any additional budget on life insurance.

Buying life insurance when you’re younger and healthier allows you to lock in cheaper rates. Disability insurance premiums will adjust in line with your income. If you’re just starting to look into building a comprehensive life insurance portfolio, understanding what life insurance options available now could help you budget to allow for both coverages.

Best Companies for Disability Insurance

If you’re shopping for private disability insurance, you might want to consider providers that can help you build the most comprehensive insurance profile you can afford, including both life and disability insurance.

High profile insurers that offer comprehensive disability and life insurance options include Mutual of Omaha and MetLife. However, since most large insurers offer disability insurance options, or work with partner companies to offer disability options, you might start your research by having a look at the top life insurance providers as ranked by J.D. Power.

Top providers on the list, like Northwestern Mutual, provider options for both disability and life.

Cost of Coverage for Both Disability & Life Insurance

Let’s take a look at how you can budget to accommodate your need for both disability insurance and life insurance. As an example, let’s say that you’re 35 years old, in good health, and avoid any tobacco products including vape products. Building out your sample profile, let’s say you have an annual income of $100,000, a mortgage of $200,000, and some residual debts.

Since you’re an independent contractor, you might not have access to employer programs and must find your own disability insurance provider. You’re also in great health so you want only the cheapest insurance to help out in dire circumstances.

The cheapest disability insurance will cost about 1 to 3 percent of your annual income. Assuming you have to pay more to cover 60 percent of your salary, you can expect to pay about $3,000 per year or $250 per month.

For life insurance, the chart below includes sample term insurance rates from the top five providers that offer both life insurance and disability insurance for a 35-year-old male and female non-smoking candidates.

We can guess at how much insurance you’ll need by adding in the $200,000 mortgage and a few years of salary and assume you’ll need coverage for about $500,000. The rates in the chart above indicate that you could pay anywhere from $18.37 to $45 per month for life insurance.

Although final rates are determined based on your health, family history, and other potential risk factors, you can assume that you’ll need anywhere from $275 to $325 per month to cover disability and life insurance.

A single provider might be able to provide a lower bundled cost and can save you time by consolidating the application process and requiring a single medical exam.

Pros & Cons

Disability insurance covers a completely different aspect of your life than life insurance.  These insurance types should both be considered necessary, but if a choice has to be made between disability and life, consider these pros and cons.

Pros

• Short-term and long-term disability can benefit anyone of working ages 18-64.
• You’re statistically more likely to need disability insurance during your working years than to die, making it more necessary than life during those years.
• Disability insurance can help you keep your quality of life if you’re unable to work.
• Disability insurance may be accessible and affordable through programs offered by your employer or through government services.

Cons

• Disability insurance won’t cover 100 percent of your income. Maximum coverage for short-term disability is about 67 percent and long-term is about 60 percent.
• Disability insurance won’t protect your family should you die. Disability only covers a percentage of income while you’re unable to work.
• Disability insurance isn’t an investment, and there is no cash value in the plan.
• Disability insurance can take a long time to be approved and paid.
• Some illnesses and injuries may not be covered by disability.

The Bottom Line

Insurance is probably not your favorite topic. In fact, most of us don’t spend much time worrying about our coverage. However, whether you’re working in a company that offers a nice benefit plan or are about to venture into your own business, you’ll want to make sure that if you’re unable to work for a period of time, you can maintain your lifestyle.

Finding the time to understand your health, disability, and life insurance needs is critical. In a best-case scenario, you’ll only ever need to rely on two of the three types of insurance.

Good health insurance can motivate you to maintain preventative care. A solid life insurance plan or strategy to have a temporary plan now with a permanent plan in the future can help you protect your loved ones.

Disability insurance is insurance that often gets lost in the fold. The bottom line, however, is that disability insurance is one that almost a quarter of Americans rely on at some point in their working years, and is probably the most overlooked. Many people assume they have disability insurance through an employer or government program but never look at the details,

Understanding your insurance profile is important and time spent with an agent to understand your needs can help you be prepared. If you’re interested in starting to build out your profile, reach out to life and disability providers to compare quotes.

You’ll first need to get a life insurance quote and then work with an agent to determine your eligibility and costs for disability based on your income.

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